


Million Dollar Baby

by DEATHCRUSHES (CalGabriel)



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Backstory, F/M, Female Prisoner, I said it, Mention of blood, Murder, Murderer, Original Character - Freeform, Protective Aaron Hotchner, fuck haley, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:29:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29101791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalGabriel/pseuds/DEATHCRUSHES
Summary: “Right this way, sir...”SSA Hotchner was being led through a heavy, locked door. It led to a small room. A metal table was situated in the middle of the room. Two metal chairs were placed on either side of the table and one seat was already occupied.She sat with her legs crossed in her orange jumpsuit. Her hair was pulled back in a messily made bun and a smile played on her lips.“Ah, Agent Hotchner. I knew you would come...”
Relationships: Original Character/Aaron Hotchner
Kudos: 8





	1. Deadlocked

**Author's Note:**

> This will be relatively short, honestly. I wanted to dip my toes into writing in the Criminal Minds universe and see if I like it, haha. Maybe I will write more in this universe in the future.
> 
> For now, if you like this short story, I hope you enjoy.

_ “Right this way, sir...” _

_ SSA Hotchner was being led through a heavy, locked door. It led to a small room. A metal table was situated in the middle of the room. Two metal chairs were placed on either side of the table and one seat was already occupied. _

_ She sat with her legs crossed in her orange jumpsuit. Her hair was pulled back in a messily made bun and a smile played on her lips. _

_ “Ah, Agent Hotchner. I knew you would come...” _

**_[Three Months_ _Earlier]_ **

JJ had briefed the team on the plane to California. Two people were murdered in their homes last week. Both were single females living in a gated community. They were taking turns throwing out ideas for the profile to see what would stick and make sense.

Meanwhile, Hotchner was flipping between crime scene photos. Listening the best he could to the team, but mostly zoning out.

“Did anyone notice the writings?” He said suddenly as Reid was explaining...well, something.

“Writings?” Agent Prentiss chimed in from the seat beside him.

“On both victims bathroom mirrors. There’s something written on them...”

Prentiss tried to peak over to see what he was talking about, but instead Hotchner held the papers closer to read.

“Can you make out what they say?” Agent Morgan asked from a few seats over.

Hotchner was quiet for a few moments before mumbling out something.

“Huh?” Morgan halfway chuckled.

“It’s for me...”

“What do you mean, Hotch?” JJ knitted her eyebrows together in confusion.

“Whoever wrote these messages wanted someone to find them. They’re in the bathrooms right off of the bedrooms. Written in the women’s lipstick...”

“How are they for you specifically? They could be for anyone who finds the bodies,” Prentiss asked.

“I doubt this person knows you, Hotch...” Morgan said.

“It says, ‘Aaron, come get me’ on Lisa VanBuren’s mirror. And on Kathrine Johnson’s it says, ‘I’m waiting on you, Aaron’.”

The team looked around to each other before Reid asked JJ who called them in to investigate.

“Uh, police chief Mike Allen...”

“Get him on the phone. Ask him if he knows anything about the writings,” Agent Rossi said as he leaned against one of the plane seats.

“On it,” JJ said as she disappeared into the back of the plane to call.

“I think we are dealing with a single female...and she knows who I am,” Hotchner said as he finally looked up from the file. 


	2. Catch Me, If You Can

Once the plane landed, the team met up with the police chief at Lisa VanBuren’s home. Hotchner went immediately to the bathroom and found the message. It was slightly smudged but still legible.

‘ **AARON COME GET ME** ’ written in red lipstick on the mirror.

Reid and Prentiss were walking through the scene for anything that stuck out. Meanwhile, Rossi, Morgan and JJ were at Kathrine Johnson’s home a few houses down.

“Hotch, Morgan found the note on the mirror. We should meet up at the police station and go over some more information. Kathrine’s place had a camera set up and we think we can get Garcia to hack her laptop for the footage,” Prentiss said as she stood in the doorway.

Hotchner watched himself in the mirror for a moment before nodding and following her out to the SUV.

“We don’t know if she’s talking about you, Hotch. This could be a clue about an accomplice or a male figure that’s she’s specifically looking for,” Reid tried to give Hotchner the benefit of the doubt from the backseat.

Hotchner didn’t say anything back, however.

At the police station, Garcia called with the best news they could’ve gotten. She was able to hack into Kathrine Johnson’s laptop and retrieve the footage from the night of the murder.

“Here you go, my beauties! Coming to a screen near you!”

The big screen in the conference room showed a woman, Kathrine, returning home and walking inside. The camera then changes to the inside of her living room as she closes her door and locks it. She sits her things down on her kitchen table and shakes off her light jacket before hanging it up on the rack. She disappears into the back of the house where her bedroom is when a figure dressed in black appears from behind a window curtain.

The team watches in horror as the figure stands in front of the camera and tilts its head. It waves slowly before making the way down the hallway to Kathrine’s room.

Garcia fast forwards the footage to the next time you see the figure. It waves again to the camera before unlocking the front door and walking out calmly.

“There’s no audio for the footage. However! I managed to run the mysterious figure through my height tracker and the unsub stands at 5’6,” Garcia explains.

“For a first kill, they seem awfully calm,” Prentiss points out.

“Maybe this isn’t the unsubs first...” Morgan suggests.

“Garcia, I need you to check through unsolved murders in the area involving home invasions with women victims. Let me know if anything comes up,” Hotchner says calmly as he checks his watch.

“I shall speak with you soon!” Garcia’s overly cheerful voice disappears with a click.

“This unsubs cool down is all over the place. Kathrine was murdered around 8:50pm on Monday. Lisa was murdered around 9:20pm on Thursday. There’s no telling when they’ll strike again,” Morgan says as he leans against the table with one hip.

“This unsub is unorganized. The-the killings are all over the map as far as brutality and choice of weapons. Kathrine Johnson was killed by a serrated hunting knife with 29 stab wounds. While Lisa was killed by a semi automatic pistol,” Reid rambles.

“Lisa’s neighbor doesn’t remember hearing a gunshot,” JJ adds.

“The unsub could have a silencer on on the end of the pistol. Unless you’re right there next to it, you wouldn’t be able to hear the gunfire,” Morgan explains.

“Either way, this unsub is quickly learning the ropes. Jumping from a close-range weapon to long-range could mean two things. One, they are trying to find what works for them, or, two, they are beginning to get hasty with the murders,” Reid said as he looked over the crime scene photos again.

“Which means the unsub will slip up eventually. If they are getting hasty with the murders themselves, they will miss something that we will catch,” Rossi looks over to Hotchner, who seems to be present but his mind racing somewhere else.

“You okay, Aaron?” Rossi finally asks after a moment.

“Yes. Just thinking. If Kathrine isn’t this unsubs first kill, we should look for any unsolved home invasion murders involving knives. Morgan,” Hotchner answered as he switched focus to Morgan.

“On it,” Morgan said as he began calling Garcia on his way out of the door.

“Do we think the unsub may hit the same gated community?” Prentiss asked, tilting her head to the side a bit as she looked up at Hotchner.

“We should get some unmarked policemen to set up surveillance just in case. Have your men ready by 7 o’clock,” Hotch said as he turned to Chief Allen.

“I got it covered.”

Hotch nodded appreciatively when he left the room to round up some men.

Two hours later, as Hotch and Morgan sat in their SUV, a call came from Chief Allen.

“There’s been another murder. A few streets over,” he told Morgan.

Morgan flipped the lights and sped off to meet the others at the new crime scene. Once they arrived, the team walked through Elizabeth Marks’s bedroom.

“Another headshot. This time she has black soot around the entry point,” Prentiss points out while looking over her body.

“She was shot at point blank range. The gun was right against her head...” Reid’s voice drifts off as Hotchner disappears to the bathroom.

On the mirror, in big red, lipstick stained letters, wrote: ‘ **I KNOW YOU’RE HERE AARON** ’. 


	3. Undercurrent

“Okay! So! I managed to find one murder involving the keywords: knife and home invasion! Analise Harper, 26, was murder Spetemember 28th. Police chalked it up to a robbery gone wrong,” Garcia explained the next day during a briefing.

“Was anything stolen from the home?” Morgan asked as the team sat together around the conference table.

“Uh, her boyfriend said they took a pistol from their safe...”

“The unsub is using the gun they stole from Analise’s home,” Rossi noted.

“Sent the crime scene photos through,” Hotchner demanded.

A few minutes later, JJ got the photos and pulled them up on the big screen. One photo showed Analise in the back room of her home, laying blooding and past dead.

“She suffered 17 stab wounds to her face, dear lord... stomach and arms,” Garcia added.

“Do you have any photos of the rest of the scene?” Hotchner asked.

JJ flipped through a few more photos of the crime scene photos until they reached a blood written note on the wall on her refrigerator.

‘“ **Aaron, I know you see me** ’...?” Morgan read out loud.

“Could be trying to reach someone. Make a point. Is there anything that connected these women together, other than ‘Aaron’?” Reid asks.

“I’ve went through everything I know. The only things these women has in common was living alone. No overlapping friends, jobs, or even places they ate,” Garcia answers sullenly.

Hotchner stared intensely at each note that was left behind.

“I think they’re trying to reach me...” He says suddenly.

“Hotch, we don’t know that for sure,” Rossi tried to reason Reid’s argument for an accomplice.

“There was only one person on that tape. The unsub. JJ, look through past cases we’ve worked in the area and see if there’s any females we’ve been in contact with or that has tried reaching out to us as recent as September,” He commands. 

“I want police patrolling the crime scene blocks and posted around the neighborhoods. This unsub has a comfort zone and so far they have stuck to it. They know we are here and looking for attention. JJ, when the press gets here release the information we have briefed on but not the fact it’s a female. Give out the tip-line number and ask for anyone with information to call in. This unsub is looking for me and they will call in to talk. Garcia, be ready on stand by to trace the call,” he finishes before standing up. 

“Yes, sir!” Garcia chipperly clicks off the video call to wait for the cue as JJ heads outside for the press.

“Are you sure about this, Hotch?” Prentiss asks from beside him.

“If this unsub wants my attention, they will get it. I’ll stall on the phone long enough for Garcia to trace it and find a location,” Hotch answers and turn to Chief Allen. “Have your men ready to go to the location of the call at any time.”


	4. Heavens Mirror

“I wasn’t able to find any woman who tried connecting to us in any previous files, Hotch,” JJ spoke as they walked along the wave of reporters outside the days after the new murder.

“Hey Hotch!” Morgan called over to them as soon as they walked into the conference room. “A potential unsub is on line five!”

“Direct them through,” he answered back as Morgan called Garcia. Within seconds, Reid, Rossi, Prentiss, Morgan and JJ were in the conference room with the police chief and Garcia on the phone. 

“This is Supervisor Special Agent Aaron Hotchner,” he answered as he picked up the phone. On the screen, Garcia immediately began typing to search for any signals from the towers in the city.

“I know who you are, Aaron,” a silky smooth female voice came through the phone speaker into Hotchner’s ear.

“You know who I am?” He asked.

“Of course. I’m a big fan of your work, Mr. Hotchner.”

“You can call me Aaron.”

“I’ve tried that already.”

“And I’m here.”

“So I see,” she let out a soft chuckle.

“Why did you ask for me specifically?” He asked. The entire room was eerily silent as they listened in on the call.

“Like I said, I’m a big fan. I want you to be the lucky one to catch me.”

Hotchner could tell she was smiling behind the phone. He felt a shiver slowly climb up his spine. Her voice did not match the brutality he had seen at the crime scenes.

However, things like that can be deceiving, he’s learned.

“What’s your name?” He asked, knowing he was trending on thin ice by asking for her name outright. He’s hoping for a few more seconds for Garcia to trace the location of the call.

“I can’t tell you my name, Aaron. I’m not stupid.”

“I’m sorry...is there anything you want me to call you?”

“No...I guess not.”

“I’ve seen you. Katherine Johnson’s home had a camera set up. You waved at us.”

“No, I was waving at you...”

“And why is that?”

“Because, Aaron. We are a twin flame,” she answered. He tried to pick up on any background noise, however it was silent on her side as well.

“What do you mean?”

“I know you’re story, Aaron. We are one in the same. What you are, I am. What I am, you are.”

“I’m not a killer. You don’t know me.”

“Aaron Hotchner. FBI’s Special Agent. Recently widowed to a mass murderer. Abused by his father as a child. Grew up hard and tough in Virginia. Became an prosecutor, probably to suit daddy’s obscure projection on you...”

“What are you getting at?”

“If you didn’t become what you are...you would be where I am. You have the same anger...the same pent up frustration. Aaron, we are the same.”

The phone line went dead. 

“I got it! 24th and Karmack!” Garcia yelled out and the team rushed out followed by several officers.

They reached the location only for it to be an empty street next to an abandoned section of houses building constructed. The pay phone was off the hook and unoccupied.

“Split up and start searching around the houses! She couldn’t have gotten far!” Hotchner barked out.


	5. Caught In The Web

Hotchner paced the conference room alone. The graphic crime scene photos of the four murders laid out on the table.

Her words floating in and out of his memory as he walked around.

They had no luck finding anyone at the location of the phone call and it was beginning to hit Hotch hard that she had gotten away once again.

She’s rather smart and cunning.

“Hotch, another body was found,” Prentiss said as she leaked her head into the room.

The body was found in one of the abandoned houses from last night. It wasn’t there the night before when they searched for the unsub. Hotch had ordered for the team and the police to go back over and search during the day for anything they might have missed.

Now, body number five was there.

Hotch and Prentiss arrived and found 24 year old, Olivia Marks in the soon-to-be living room in one of the newly constructed houses.

“Is this our unsub?” One police men asked Prentiss as they crossed the yellow tape.

“Was there any notes left behind?” Reid asked as he caught up with them and looked around.

“There’s something written in blood in the kitchen. We couldn’t make it out,” Chief Allen answered.

Quickly, Hotch found the note.

‘ **AARON IM HERE FOR YOU** ’.

Aaron let out a heavy sigh before returning to the body. She suffered a gunshot point blank like Elizabeth Marks.

“This is our unsub,” he said blankly.

Prentiss watched as he walked out of the home and turned er attention to Reid.

“Why is she doing this?”

“She seems to think her and Hotch are the same. I think she suffered abuse like Hotch and thinks that if Hotch didn’t become a prosecutor, he would be like her...a murderer.”

“You don’t think that’s true, do you?” She asked as she stood up, pulling the white sheet back over Olivia’s body.

“No, of course not. She used the term “projecting” when talking about Hotch’s father. Hotch became a prosecutor because he looked up to his father. Maybe this unsub looked up to her abusive father as well. We could be looking for a male murderer who had a daughter,” Spencer offered.

“Call Garcia and have her check for convicted murders who have daughters in the age range of 20-30,” Prentiss said as she followed Hotch to tell him the new development.

He agreed that could be a lead and the team met back up at the police station for Garcia’s results.

An hour later, Garcia called into the conference room.

“I, Penelope Garcia, deserve a raise for the things I have seen today,” she began.

“Did you find anything matching a male murderer with a daughter in our age range?” Morgan asked.

“Yes. Al Holcomb is serving time on death row for the murders of 12 teenage girls. He had a daughter with his wife, who died mysteriously in a car burning. Diana Holcomb, 26. I have a DCFS report that was taken after his arrest from when Diana was 10 that states that she was abused by her father and he made her assist in the kidnapping of the teenage girls.”

“Do you have an address?” Prentiss asked.

“Yes, my dear, 1290 Carville Road.”

“We are on the way,” Hotch said as him and the team hurried there way out to Diana’s address with the police.

When they reached the house, it was eerily quiet on the street. The yard was mostly cement and a black car sat in the driveway. Hotchner, Prentiss and Reid took the front of the house while Rossi, Morgan and JJ went around the house.

Suddenly, Morgan kicked in the backdoor while Hotchner kicked in the front. The house was kept clean aside from newspapers on the wall. They hurried in with their guns pointed, sweeping to clear rooms.

“Back rooms are clear!” Morgan shouted.

“In here!” Prentiss called from the living room.

There sat a young and beautiful Diana. Halfway scared, but mostly calm demeanor despite having guns drawn on her.

“Aaron,” she started to say before she reached behind her.

“Drop it!” Prentiss yelled out at her.

When Diana kept her hand behind her, Prentiss yelled out again.

After a quick flinch, Diana pulled out a knife from her back pocket and Hotchner shot her once in the shoulder, making her drop the knife and slump over slightly in her seat. Reid called out for an ambulance while Rossi pulled her up and put her in cuffs. Medics entered the home and quickly put her in the back of the ambulance.

“I’m going with her,” Hotchner said to the team as they walked out.

“I’ll go with you,” Rossi told him as they climbed into he back of the ambulance.

Hotchner almost protested that he didn’t need protection, but it would be moot.

“I’m surpised you came, Aaron,” Diana told him in the ambulance.

“You asked for me specifically.”

The medic rushed to put an oxygen mask on her as she drifted in and out of consciousness from the blood loss.


	6. Answers

Hotchner and Rossi sat in the waiting room for Diana to get out of surgery. Hotchner’s knee was bouncing and Rossi finally said something.

“Aaron, you didn’t kill her. It’s a minor gunshot. She’ll pull through. Why did you want to come? To interview her?”

“Yes. We need to get some information out of her that we don’t have yet.”

“Like why did she start killing? Yeah, it’s important but we can wait,” Rossi offered.

“No.”

After 40 mintues, a doctor arrived to tell them that she was awake and available to interview. A policemen walked with Hotchner and Rossi to her room before Hotch stopped them both.

“I can handle it from here,” he told them.

The officer stepped away and said he would wait outside for him. Rossi tossed him a confused look but realized why.

Hotchner needs answers to what she told him over the phone. It’s been bugging him ever since they spoke and Rossi knew that he wasn’t going to wait anymore for the answer.

Hotch stepped inside the sterile hospital room and saw Diana laying there, sleeping.

“Ms. Holcomb?” He asked. She stirred and saw Hotch standing at the end of her bed. She sat up lopsidedly and gave him a smile.

“You shot me,” she weakly chuckled.

He remembered her laughing on the phone during their call. 

“You had a knife.”

“Well, I planned on killing myself.”

“Suicide by cop? That doesn’t seem like something you would do.”

“No, I was gonna cut the bitch with the gun in my face.”

“That’s SSA Prentiss.”

Diana rolled her eyes, “I know who she is. She was there when Haley Hotchner was murdered...wasn’t she?”

Hotch ignored the question.

“Why me?”

“We are the same.”

“You said that. Tell me the truth. How?”

Diana smiled again.

“I think underneath everything there is some kind of layer.”

“One that wants to murder innocent people?”

“One that finally understands. I was forced to help my dad kidnap those innocent girls who were only a few years older than I was. I was made to watch him cut their throats. I was on the drives to dump them in the state park. My situation was slightly different than yours. But you know...you know the burden of holding what happens to you as a child in. You know what that can do to someone. Take your wife’s murderer. Didn’t you beat him to death with your own hands? All that anger...that pent up blind rage that swoops in and takes over.”

“Why did you have anger with these women you killed?”

“Those women didn’t mean anything to me. I saw them out in town a few times. They seemed nice enough. Fairly easy to sneak into a gated community when you look just as nice.”

“...You killed them to get my attention?”

“I knew you would understand why I did it. That’s why you’re here. You saw my anger and you felt it. You’ve taken lives of people like me. But you didn’t kill me. Why?”

“We need justice for those women. And we need to know why. Those families need to know why.”

Hotch took steps closer to Diana. Her hand strained against the cuffs of her wrist attached to the hospital bed frame.

“You...wanted to know why.”

Hotchner didn’t say anything to that.

“You are being transported to San Diego State Correctional in the morning.”

“Will you come visit?”

“No,” Hotch answered as he turned around and walked back into the hospitals hallway.

He left with Rossi to the airport to meet the rest of the team for the trip back to Virginia.


	7. Where Is My Mind?

**[Three Months Later]**

“Right this way, sir.”

SSA Hotchner was being led through a heavy, locked door. It led to a small room. A metal table was situated in the middle of the room. Two metal chairs were placed on either side of the table and one seat was already occupied.

She sat with her legs crossed in her orange jumpsuit. Her hair was pulled back in a messily made bun and a smile played on her lips.

“Ah, Agent Hotchner. I knew you would come...”

Hotchner took the seat across from her and the guard closed the door with a lock. Hotch glanced up at the camera in the corner of the room.

“Planning on doing something?” She smiled.

“No.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” She asked.

“You’ve exasperated your last appeal. You’re going to be executed,” he said blankly.

“Yeah?”

“I was working on a case here and I heard that you wanted to talk.”

She titled her head. He carefully watched her face. She was a beautiful girl. If he believes in the nurture part of psychopathy, she could’ve been something different.

That’s what she says about him, however.

“I wanted to tell you that I lied.”

“About what?”

“In January, I took off to Virginia. I came across a profiling class and you were sitting in with Agent David Rossi. You seemed the dark, brooding, angry type. Interesting. I looked you up and found out all those things about you, your wife and your team.”

“How did you know about my father?”

“I could see it in your face. You’ve been through something like we have, you have a look. I knew that you would understand the anger I have. You killed your wife’s murderer because of your anger. The pain of holding in all those photos of women and child—killed. Then see your wife in the same postion. The feeling of helplessness. I felt that watching those girls at the hands of my father. I wanted to help them. Do something to get them out. Did you know that I tried?”

“Tried what?”

“There was this one girl. She was about 15. My father fell asleep and I tried sneaking her out of the house. He woke up and shot her in her legs so she couldn’t run.”

“Why did he not kill you?”

“He told me it would be ‘too suspicious’ to kill his own daughter.”

Hotchner didn’t say anything. Instead, he listened.

“I thought about killing him in his sleep. But, that wouldn’t make everything he did go away. Now, I wish I did. Maybe he wouldn’t have done those things. Maybe I wouldn’t be here now.”

“You feel remorse for not killing your father?”

“At the time, I thought it wouldn’t make me any better than he was. I realized that I’m wrong. I killed those women for you to come here. Because I knew that if anyone felt my pain, it would be you. I know you feel remorse. Maybe not now, but eventually, for things you’ve done in the name of your anger.”

“Did you ask me here to listen to your life story?”

“I asked you here to listen. I wanted you to know that I’m here with you. You aren’t alone in the way you feel.”

“I don’t feel the need to kill innocent people because of my anger or my childhood.”

“If you had my childhood, you would.”

“You chose to kill those women. You could’ve been better than your father. Instead you became him.”

“And you became your father. Albeit, a slightly better and more successful verison.”

“Diana,” Hotch said as moved closer to her from across the table. “Why didn’t you just call? If you knew where I was, why not try to contact us?”

“I thought asking to speak to you about my anger and rage would set off all kinds of alarms that I didn’t want to go through,” she laughed.

“So you start killing?”

She sighs, “Aaron. Do you understand me?”

“I understand where you are coming from, Diana. But murdering innocent people for my attention cost the lives of five women with families and friends.”

Hotchner stood up and pushed the chair in.

“You’re scheduled for execution next September.”

As he started walking towards the door, Diana stood up.

“Agent Hotchner. I hope that I can see you again before that. And I hope you understand that your anger isn’t going to go away.”

He turned to look at her again, “You’ll see me next September.”


	8. September 28th, 12:47pm

Hotchner took a seat in the last row of the witness box. A large window was covered by a black curtain. He was the first person in a seat and his knee couldn’t stop bouncing. 

He told the team he needed to take a trip to California to meet up with a friend, but somewhere deep down he knew that they knew...he was coming for Diana’s execution.

After a few more mintues, random people began shuffling in and finding seats. There was about 6 people in total, with two guards in the corners of the room.

One of them finally moved up front and pulled the black curtain back. Behind it revealed Diana, chained by her wrists to ankles, being led to the white chair. It reminded Hotch of a dentist chair.

She slid herself in the seat and one guard began uncuffing her, only to strap her down.

When she finally looked through the glass, she could see Aaron Hotchner watching. Almost passive-aggressively trying not to watch.

He’s been to these before, but something about Diana keeps him coming back. Maybe it’s the way she spoke to him. Had she possibly hit a nerve?

Either way, she smiled a little at him.

In return he nodded back.

“This is your state execution. You will be giving a sedative followed by a fast acting barbiturate until you are dead. Do you have any last words that you would like us to write on the record?” The doctor presiding over the execution asked Diana.

She nodded, “Aaron, I’m sorry. I’ll still be with you in hopes you find your release, whatever that may be. You aren’t alone in the way you feel inside.”

Hotchner held his breath.

“I’m sorrry,” Diana mouthed to him.

“I’m sorry,” Hotchner whispered back.

Finally she smiled again as she was given an IV in her arm. She laid back and got comfortable in her seat. The onlookers held in their breaths as her breathing slowed down and something was shot into her IV.

After a few more mintues, the doctor checked her pulse and declared her deceased.

“Diana Grace Holcomb, 12:47pm. September 28th: execution date.”

Hotch let out a small sigh and closed his eyes.

Even laying there, strapped in, Diana seemed majestic. Her beauty was unmatched and he felt a sharp prick of pain. He could’ve helped her. If he understood her the way she thought, he could’ve done something. Anything.

Diana became what she feared. And Hotch became what his father wanted.

Maybe they were the same.

Maybe he’s no better than Diana.


End file.
